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Karmichael to sign with Gold Coast....AFL!!!

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Duckman#72

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14 November 2005
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Big News Sports Fans!!!

The AFL has just announced the Gold Coast team has its first big signing - Karmichael Hunt. Yes - he of Bronco's, QLD Origin (and Toilet Tryst) fame.

Fantastic move. You have to hand it to Andrew Demetriou - he knows how to grow, promote and foster the games development.

Hunt was a very promising AFL junior that chose League over AFL around 15 years of age. Regardless of his ability to be turned into a "superstar" of the game his status in Qld provides the GC franchise with its first "Wow" factor.

The AFL has the cash to throw at the GC team and all the other clubs are in serious negotiations with their good players to lock them into contracts to stop them going. Makes sense to grab name players that could be moved across.

I don't think that it is going to create a "flood" of people transferring (due to limited no's of people able to make the transition) but players like Billy Slater, Israel Falou and Greg Inglis would be looked at closely by the AFL.

Well done Andrew.
 
It will be interesting to see how he copes with the cardio vascular demands of AFL, along with the kicking skills. Something to watch thats for sure.

The article i read went on about how many tackles he lays in an NRL game, but AFL fields are much larger and players dont charge into the oppostion, so i think this will also be somewhat nullified
 
There is no precedence for this, so as an AFL fan I'm pretty excited. He's only 22 so will be 24 when GC comes in the comp. I wonder which league he'll be playing in next year - no doubt he will be the highest paid amateur player of all time!
 
Duckman#72 said:
Fantastic move. You have to hand it to Andrew Demetriou - he knows how to grow, promote and foster the games development.

...Well done Andrew.
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Yeah right, poaching a player from rugby league by throwing money at him is hardly a new idea.

I see, this new superstar of AFL has not played the game at a senior level.

Dim-wit-riou's plans for growing the game seem to be fixated on damaging the other football codes and taking their audience.
 
Yeah I don't think its going to be a common occurrence. Obviously a lot of cash was thrown his way.

Saw an interesting article earlier this month about the supposed "threat" to league from the new western sydney AFL team. This is a snippet.




"The NRL has every reason to feel bullish after the AFL's own mid-year report revealed Sydney Swans' average match attendance was down almost 10 per cent.

This came on top of news that memberships are down 15 per cent, pay-TV audience is down 7.4 per cent and free-to-air TV ratings are down 20 per cent compared to this time last year.

At the same time, league's numbers are heading in the opposite direction despite massive publicity generated by off-field scandals.

NRL crowds are up five per cent, the game's weekly television ratings are up 14.2 per cent in Sydney and total club memberships have grown 27 per cent.

However, the AFL's $200 million war chest gives it a significant advantage."
 
Duckman#72 said:
Big News Sports Fans!!!

The AFL has just announced the Gold Coast team has its first big signing - Karmichael Hunt. .
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Good on him for coming out of the closet. No shame in him being a fairy in this day and age
 
The pressure will be on him to perform as he apparently is being paid well.If they don't get many more ready made players, he will have to take the best defender from whom they are playing and will struggle before he gets a chance to develope confidence.

I think he will struggle to get a kick myself as AFL is about how well you can read the play and that is an unknown factor as he hasn't played since he was 15.

At an early guess,they will put him in as a physical tagger who can protect the on ballers.They will be a young team so will need that.

Time is on there side so phyically, he will AFL ready.You can't expect too much in the skills department as he has been playing Rugby League , as skills are not high on the priority list there!
 

I wouldn't read any of those figures.What a load of s__t that quote is.Example on attendance:

AFL total attendance 2008 = 6,511,189 (av. = 36,995)
NRL total attendance 2008 = 2,993,518 (av. = 15,591)
Sydney Swans att. 2008 = 701,842 (av. = 31,901)

Sydney Swans attendance 2009 (so far,8 games) AVERAGE = 29,945
Couldn't find NRL result 2009 but going by "up by 5%"on 2008=16,370

Swans attendance down by 10% BS!! closer to 5%.

Expose your source???????????If not your pants will catch on fire!!
 
Savoy Special said:
You can't expect too much in the skills department as he has been playing Rugby League , as skills are not high on the priority list there!
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Please... accurate kicking, passing, tackling is the essence of rugby league, not to mention keeping control of the ball which I noticed lacks in AFL.
 

and be prepared for more. clearly the dim wits up your way havent figured this out yet.

moXJO said:
Good on him for coming out of the closet. No shame in him being a fairy in this day and age
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please let this be the beginning of the end of that stupid game.

i noticed yet another reference to the AFL being a game for fairies - surely in this modern day & age the bull necks can grow up and provide decent argument both for and against. remember your game is the one with the only 'outing'. (forgot his name, appeared in underbelly 2 (dont know about 1, we didnt see it lol)

the stupid game is, and only remains viable, due to the huge financial support of the media barons. it can be guaranteed that once they withdraw their funding of the stupid game, it would fold instantly. yeah sure take TV away from the AFL and it hurts too, but it generates ample cash from outside TV and sponsors to keep going.
 
chode84 said:
Thats my source. and in 2008 NRL games were the top 15 pay tv shows for the year with AFL's highest rating game at 26th.
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Perhaps thats because most AFL games are shown on free to air tv?
 
I wonder if GC is footing the whole bill or Eyebrows Demetriou is chipping in a bit - a good plan to poach some big NRL names when trying to break into NRL country. Too bad he won't be a good player...
 
Ghetto23 said:
I wonder if GC is footing the whole bill or Eyebrows Demetriou is chipping in a bit - a good plan to poach some big NRL names when trying to break into NRL country. Too bad he won't be a good player...
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GC will have a much larger salary cap initially, so they will be footing the whole bill within their cap, however im sure they get some other financial assistance from the AFL to start with

chode84 said:
Most? Isn't it only four?
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Depends on the weekend. On a standard weekend you have the Friday Night, Sat arvo, Sat Night, Sun arvo and sometimes Sunday twilight.

But a lot of the AFL blockbusters are played on long weekend, so on those weekends its usually 5 games free to air with one of them being massive (think Essendon v Collingwood anzac day). Hence there is no need for the big games to be shown on PayTV, as the free to air programming usually chooses the matches that be the best. (IE will show 2 top 8 sides playing rather than 2 bottom sides if they play at the same time)
 
And we also should remember that the relevant games for each region are always shown free-to-air. In WA we get all Dockers/Weevils games, Adelaide gets both teams and that obviously cuts into the pay TV ratings.
 
There is a precedence for this! How could I forget!

When the Western Reds first started they signed the immortal Adrian Barich to win over the WA public.

Guess how that went?
 
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